In today's article we will talk about Huon Gulf languages, a topic that has captivated the attention of many people over the years. From its origins to the present, Huon Gulf languages has been the subject of debate, discussion and analysis in various areas. Its relevance and impact on society position it as a topic of general interest, whether due to its influence on popular culture, science, politics or any other field. Throughout the article we will explore different aspects related to Huon Gulf languages, with the aim of offering a broad and complete vision of this topic.
| Huon Gulf | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Papua New Guinea |
| Linguistic classification | Austronesian |
| Proto-language | Proto-Huon Gulf |
| Subdivisions | |
| Glottolog | huon1245 |
The Huon Gulf languages are Western Oceanic languages spoken primarily in Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea. They may form a group of the North New Guinea languages, perhaps within the Ngero–Vitiaz branch of that family.[citation needed]
Unusually for Oceanic languages, two North Huon Gulf languages, Bukawa and Yabem, are tonal. The only other tonal Oceanic languages are found in New Caledonia.
According to Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002), the structure of the family is as follows:
| Proto-Huon Gulf | |
|---|---|
| Reconstruction of | Huon Gulf languages |
Reconstructed ancestors | |
| Lower-order reconstructions | |
Proto-Huon Gulf was reconstructed by Malcolm Ross in 1988 in Proto-Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia. It is reconstructed on the basis of shared phonological, morphosyntactic and lexicosemantic innovations relative to Proto-Oceanic, such as the pervasive lenition of Proto-Oceanic *p to *v, the acquisition of a final *-c in some words, the idiosyncratic change of Proto-Oceanic *boRok 'pig' to Proto-Huon Gulf *boR, and the loss of all verb-deriving prefixes such as *pa- 'causative', *paRi- 'reciprocal', *ma- 'stative', and *ta- 'intransitive'.
The vowels of Proto-Huon Gulf, according to Ross, are:
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | *i | *u | |
| Close-mid | *e | *o | |
| Open | *a |
The consonants of Proto-Huon Gulf, according to Ross, are:
| Labiovelar | Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiced | *b | *d | *ɟ | *g | ||
| voiceless | *p | *t | *c | *k | |||
| Nasal | *mʷ | *m | *n | *ɲ | *ŋ | ||
| Fricative | *v | *s | *ɣ | ||||
| Approximant | *w | *l, *r | *j | *ʀ | |||